By Chesney Hearst, Senior Contributing Reporter
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Currently touring South America in support of her latest release, Dreamchaser, British singer Sarah Brightman will bring her unique blend of opera, pop, symphonic rock, world music and theater to Rio’s Citibank Hall tonight, December 1st.
Owning the title of the world’s best-selling soprano, the now 53-year-old singer has sold more than thirty million albums worldwide to date.
She first entered the scene in the early 1980s as a member of the disco dance group Hot Gossip. Although they achieved a level of success with the single “I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper,” Brightman really came into her own when she starred as Christine Daaé in the West End production of “The Phantom of the Opera” by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, her husband at the time.
The original London cast recording of the musical, released in 1987, was a massive success and went on to sell over forty million copies worldwide, making it the biggest-selling cast production album to date. After Brightman’s divorce from Lloyd Webber, she forged a new musical path outside of the world of theater and began to blend her operatic talents with covers of pop, rock, alternative rock, world and classic standards.
Tonight’s show in Rio comes after her appearances in Chile, Argentina and most recently in São Paulo on Thursday, November 28th.
“The applause was flooding the entire Luna Park,” fan Mariano Costa says of the show he attended in Buenos Aires on November 21st. “My feeling was not crying, but hypnotism to see the artist that I have followed for 23 years.”
To many of Brightman’s fans and followers, the show’s visuals, which included images of space and space travel, also came as no surprise. Earlier this year, Brightman announced her intention to become the first recording artist to travel to the International Space Station. Currently a cosmonaut-in-waiting, she underwent and passed medical and psychological testing in Russia and is scheduled to begin her journey into space in 2015.
Brightman credits her love of space travel as the main influence for her 11th and latest album, Dreamchaser, which includes covers of the songs “Angel” and “Venus and Mars,” among others.
“I wanted to pick pieces which had a beautiful expansive feel,” she told BBC News earlier this year after the album’s release. “I wanted people to experience the emotions you get when you think about the universe when you are introduced to new things like the Hubble did for us in the last years and also the romance of it.”
Fans can expect a performance of her latest album at her concert tonight. “The repertoire was based essentially on her latest album Dreamchaser, plus several of her hits from the world of opera like, “Nessun Dorma,” “Canto della Terra,” “Figlio Perduto” and “The Phantom of the Opera.” She also performed “Time to Say Goodbye,” “The Moon” and “A Question of Honour,” among others,” Costa said of the Buenos Aires show.
“Creator and pioneer of classical crossover genre, Sarah Brightman is the inspirational seed for other artists. I still do not have words to express what I experienced, I thank God for having witnessed this magical show,” moved fan Costa said.
Brightman’s final stop in South America after Rio will be in Belo Horizonte on Tuesday, December 3rd.
Who: Sarah Brightman
When: Sunday, December 1st, 7PM
Where: Citibank Hall, Av. Ayrton Senna, 3000 – Barra da Tijuca
Entrance: R$250-R$600, available here and the Citibank Hall box office.
Read more (in Portuguese).
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